


I know you love me from the other side

by Elisexyz



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Character Death Fix, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everyone Is Drunk And/Or Crying, F/M, Fix-It, Post Episode: s03e22 There's No Place Like Home, hugs everywhere
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-13
Updated: 2019-06-13
Packaged: 2020-03-19 18:41:39
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,405
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18976141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Elisexyz/pseuds/Elisexyz
Summary: The five people who visit Neal’s grave.





	I know you love me from the other side

**Author's Note:**

> I _could_ have made this one canon compliant but. I mean. Nah.  
>  Also [this is the song partially responsible for this](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YBo_E-82JQA), check it out ~~and cry~~. If you look up 'self-indulgent' on the dictionary you'll find a link to this fic, and I regret absolutely nothing.  
>    
>  Fair warning: since this takes into account the s3 finale, Captain Swan is a thing, it's mentioned, but it's not seen in the best light (it's a not particularly meaningful series of hook-ups, basically) and they don't last.  
>    
>  Also, for anyone wondering, I sort of have an explanation for what's going on with Neal: the exchange was "a life for a life", so the vault was meant to take him in Rumple's place. Except they are not in the Enchanted Forest anymore, so Neal kinda got "stuck" in between.

If he weren’t dead already, Neal would probably die of boredom sooner rather than later.

For all that talk that everybody does about heaven and people sitting on clouds and watching over the living, the Afterlife, at least for him, doesn’t really live up to the hype: he’s stuck by his grave, doing nothing all day but sitting around and trying yet again to walk more than ten feet away from the spot where they buried him.

He isn’t even sure _how_ it happened: one minute he was dying – rather painfully, he might add – in Emma’s arms, and then he just woke up there, alone. He fully worked out that he must be some sort of spirit only when his dad came by to announce that he’d kill Zelena for him and no amount of yelling or shoving got him to be noticed.

Well, at least he and Belle are getting married. He hopes they are happy and it doesn’t all get blown to hell when – or if – she finds out about his little trick with the dagger.

Henry is the one who visits more frequently, every couple of days.

He always brings flowers, although he admittedly isn’t so sure if Neal even likes them, then he sits down and tells him about his day, how he’s doing, what everyone is up to.

Generally, Regina drives him, although she always waits in the car. Emma never showed up, and Neal can’t say that he’s surprised: she isn’t really the kind of person to come crying all over a grave.

That’s fine, Henry tells him that she’s doing okay: she and Killian are a _thing_ now, apparently, and although Neal really does want her to be happy, the reminder always weirds him out a little – that’s technically his stepfather dating the mother of his son, come _on_ – and it stings, half because he’s jealous and half because Henry clearly hates the whole thing.

When he sees Henry quickly walking up to him, Neal smiles slightly in relief, quietly greeting him even if he can’t hear.

“Hi, Dad,” Henry quickly says, kneeling down to change the flowers and then sitting on the ground, legs crossed and a wide smile plastered on his face.

Neal leans over the gravestone, taking a sharp breath.

“So, I, uh, actually don’t have much to say,” Henry shrugs, rocking back and forth a couple of times. “Everything has been pretty boring.”

“Good,” he snorts. ‘Boring’ in this place merely means that there were no magical catastrophes, which is actually a big relief for him. He’s kinda been expecting for his son to show up any day now announcing that there’s a new witch trying to take over the world.

“I have a lot of homework to do, because yesterday at Emma’s I didn’t do half of it—” He scoffs. “Regina would probably kill me if she knew.”

Neal smiles a little.

“Emma went out with Hook, _again_ —” Henry mutters, his expression darkening as he plays with a small hole in his jeans. “But I watched the first two Harry Potter movies with my grandparents, after dinner,” he adds then, quickly brightening up. “They wanted to see them without cursed memories— actually, Grandpa never watched them period. We’ll watch them all.”

“That must be fun.” Thinking back to when _he_ watched those movies, he was a little weirded out by how different magic was from the reality of it, so he supposes that it’d be interesting to watch them with someone who actually lived a whole life in the Enchanted Forest. Even better, with actual Snow White and Prince Charming. If Henry could hear him, Neal would definitely suggest putting them through the Disney movies as soon as possible.

Henry stays silent for a little too long, his smile dropping and slowly turning into a frown. “I don’t even know if _you_ ’ve ever watched them,” he mutters, his eyes getting glassy as he stubbornly stares at the ground.

Neal swallows heavily, completely failing at getting rid of the lump in his throat: they never had enough time together for it to come up in conversation, that like so many other things.

He sits down next to Henry, wishing he could actually _do_ something to make it better. “I’m sorry,” he only says, and if it was for his own benefit it doesn’t work one bit.

The only thing he wanted was to get back to his son and to Emma, and with him he never even got a _word_.

Henry brings his legs up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them and pressing his mouth against his knee, silently staring at the gravestone in front of him.

“I miss you too, buddy,” Neal says, quietly, wrapping his arm around Henry’s shoulders as the kid closes his eyes for a moment, allowing Neal to delude himself that he can feel that he isn’t alone.

( _To hell with the price_ , yeah, right. He really is his father’s son.)

 

 

-

 

 

“You know,” Neal sighs, dropping on the ground and crossing his arms. “You are not helping me with my boredom problem, man.”

Killian showed up a while ago, rum in hand and a deep frown on his face. He made a silent toast, drank a sip so generous that it’s a wonder that he didn’t choke on it, and then he sat down, back against the grave, just drinking and occasionally _sighing_.

“The whole point of visiting dead people is _talking_ to them,” Neal continues, because the sound of his own voice is way better than nothing. “The hell did you come here for?”

He supposes that it’s a little unfair to complain, given that Neal himself would probably feel stupid talking to a stone, and he _is_ a little touched that he showed up to begin with, really, it’s just that he’s _bored_.

Killian shakes his flask, shooting a disapproving look at it. “I should have brought _so_ much more,” he mumbles, before setting it down and throwing his head back, which makes it collide against the stone.

Neal winces in sympathy, but Killian doesn’t seem all that bothered: he doesn’t so much as move an inch.

“Come on, look alive,” Neal says, because he’s hilarious. He gives him a playful shove, since he’s always forgetting that his hand will just go right through him. Which is exactly what happens, except Killian visibly shudders, his head shooting up as he confusedly looks around.

Neal barely has time to be hopeful that _this time_ he will be seen, though, that something behind him catches Killian’s attention. Or rather, someone.

“I didn’t come here looking for company,” Rumple comments, the displeasure written all over his face.

Neal automatically shoots on his feet, taking a couple of steps back so that he can look at them both.

“How tragic,” Killian comments, grinning widely as if to highlight that he’s enjoying himself. “I was here first.”

“I’m not leaving,” Rumple replies, his jaw tight. Neal has the distinct impression that he’s a hot second away from throttling him.

“Neither am I,” Killian shrugs, making a show of getting more comfortable on his seat.

“Don’t start a fistfight over my grave, please,” Neal mutters, rubbing his face with both hands.

Although, coming to think of it, at _least_ that would be entertaining. It might end with literal blood being spilled – who is he kidding, it’d _definitely_ end in blood –, but having someone to yell at would be a good change of pace.

Provided they don’t actually kill each other, that is.

“Wonderful,” Rumple only comments. For a moment, it looks like he might just leave after all, but instead he sits on the ground as well, his arm almost touching Killian’s in a way that’s definitely deliberate.

Killian eyes him with a weird expression on his face, but he doesn’t say anything.

“Fantastic,” Neal mutters, going back to sitting down as well. “Now there’s _two_ people brooding in silence.”

An _eternity_ of brooding passes before said silence is broken.

“You killed her, didn’t you?” Killian asks, turning slightly in Rumple’s direction.

“Excuse me?”

Ah, the raised eyebrows of bullshit. Neal remembers those.

“The witch,” Killian clarifies, rolling his eyes. “She didn’t just _conveniently_ drop dead.”

Rumple stares at him for a few moments, his expression neutral. “We all saw the security tape.”

“Yeah, right.”

Everyone present, dead or alive, knows perfectly well that messing with a tape wouldn’t be all that difficult for someone as powerful as the Dark One.

“I hope it hurt, anyway,” Killian eventually shrugs, looking straight ahead.

Neal rolls his eyes, although he doesn’t _completely_ abhor the sentiment. He tends to frown upon murder, and when his father showed up to promise him that he’d kill Zelena in his name he would have beaten him in the head with a stick if he had been corporeal, but he has pretty clear memories, most of them not actually belonging to him, of being under her care, and exactly _none_ of them are pleasant, so it’s not like he’s losing any sleep over her being dead.

Plus, she kinda had a hand in _him_ dying. He’s holding a bit of a grudge.

Rumple doesn’t immediately answer, warily eyeing Killian before drawing in a sharp breath. “If I _had_ done it,” he eventually says. “She would have had time to beg.”

Killian turns towards him, a bitter smile flickering on his face. “Good.”

“Of course you are bonding over _this_ of all things,” Neal comments, literally throwing his hands up. “Why am I even surprised?”

“Rum?” Killian offers, handing him his probably close to empty flask, which is pretty much a declaration of love coming from him.

Rumple accepts it after only a moment of hesitation, and Neal can’t help smiling a little.

(If they became friends, that would be one good thing coming out of this mess, wouldn’t it?)

 

 

-

 

 

When he sees Regina’s car pulling up, Neal instinctively breaks into a smile, waiting for Henry to jump off and come to talk to him about what is going on in town. He’s understandably confused when it’s Regina who appears instead.

“That’s new,” he frowns, when she starts walking towards him at a quick pace, flowers in her hands and the face of someone who would much rather be anywhere else right now.

She stops a few feet away from his grave, drawing in a sharp breath before suddenly bursting out: “So. I feel a little stupid, but Henry is sick, and he asked me to come change the flowers.”

“Wait, how sick?” Neal instinctively asks, frowning. Regina doesn’t look particularly distressed, so he supposes it’s safe to assume that it isn’t anything life threatening, but his first instinct would still be checking out for himself, and he _can’t_. He’s stuck by his stupid grave, and he doesn’t even have a body.

“I promised him I would, and I’m trying to keep up a no lying policy, so I’m doing it,” Regina continues, gesturing vaguely with her free hand.

Neal snorts, finding a little bit of amusement in how uncomfortable she looks.

“I’m also supposed to tell you that he says hi,” she adds, her eyes darting around as if she were waiting for someone to confess to be spying on her. “And that he’ll come by as soon as he’s feeling better.”

“I’m gonna miss him,” he mutters. He hopes that he’ll feel better soon, and not entirely out of selflessness.

Regina sighs, overplaying a good amount of annoyance as she kneels over to take care of the flowers. It’s a very weird sight: the two of them weren’t really _close_ , they barely knew each other. Neal actually had a very bad first impression of her, which he sort of set aside on Neverland, when it became clear that she was on the same page as him, if only about Henry. They didn’t have much time to get to know each other, not even when they were stuck in the Enchanted Forest, because Regina kept a lot to herself and Neal was too busy wrecking his brain for a way back to care.

She definitely isn’t among the people that he’d ever have pictured visiting his grave.

He’s glad that she is, though, because she clearly doesn’t like it: she’s doing it solely for Henry’s benefit, and that helps mitigating any doubt he might have had that she’s being good to him.

As soon as she’s done, Regina pushes herself up, not wasting a second before turning her back on him and heading towards the car.

Except she only takes a few steps before she stops, hesitating before turning back around.

Neal raises his eyebrows, confused.

“Look,” she finally says, sharply. “If you _are_ listening—” She hesitates for a moment, then she shakes her head slightly. “He’s okay. We’re taking care of him.” It’s soft but firm, and Neal can’t help smiling, nodding once and staring at her as she stands by for a few seconds, as if waiting for an answer.

“Yeah, I know,” he says, quietly.

(It just sucks that he can’t be a part of that.)

 

 

-

 

 

Emma shows up in the middle of the night, unstable on her feet and holding an half-empty bottle of Neal isn’t even sure _what_.

“Jesus,” he mutters, after the few extra seconds that he needs to remember how to speak. “What the hell, Emma?”

He doesn’t even want to know how she got there. He can’t see the car, so hopefully she walked, but the hell is she doing out alone and drunk off her ass at that hour?

“I really, _really_ hate you,” she declares, and the streetlight doesn’t really help her not look like some kind of zombie who just crawled out of her grave – says the dead man, but still.

“Ouch,” he mutters, half-heartedly. To be honest, he’s way more worried about her general state of mind than what she thinks of him right now.

“Like, at this point, I should be— I don’t know, it’s like time three hundred that you left, I should be used to—to you not being here, you know? You being around, now _that_ would be weird.”

She sniffles, rubbing her nose against her sleeve and taking a couple of sips from the bottle, which he _really_ hopes is her first. She’s always had a good tolerance for alcohol, but she seems pretty wasted.

“I didn’t mean to go anywhere this time,” he can’t help saying, ever hopeful that by some kind of _miracle_ it will help.

For a moment, she stays there in silence, and his stomach clenches in anticipation.

Her face suddenly twists in rage, and she growls ‘You _asshole_!’, throwing the bottle in his direction. He instinctively tries to duck, cursing under his breath, but of course it flies right through him, crashing against the gravestone instead, pieces of glass flying everywhere.

“Jesus _Christ_ , Emma—” he protests, his heart in his throat as he looks back to her.

Emma looks stunned for a moment, then she shakes her head, letting out a low chuckle. “Probably shouldn’t have done that.” She ungracefully lowers herself to the ground, rubbing her face with both hands. “This is your fault too,” she declares after a few moments, glaring at the poor gravestone.

Neal shakes his head slightly, sitting down in front of her probably out of masochism, because that gives him a much better view of her face and, god, she looks like a _mess_.

She snorts, throwing her head back. “I left Hook,” she informs him, a lifeless grin still on her face. “We had a good thing going on there, you know— there were drinks, and having sex, generally in this order, and I didn’t think— there was no _thinking_ —” she stresses, leaning forward. “—and there was no _feeling_. I mean, lots of feeling, but not feeling this _shitty_.”

A part of him wants to try and ask her to stop giving any information on whatever it is that she and Hook did together, but he isn’t sure he could choke it out if he tried, because she looks so broken that it’s making it hard to breathe.

“I am a mom, you know, in theory,” she shrugs, tears building up in her eyes all at once and then falling down like waterfalls as soon as she blinks. “I kinda tried to forget that too, I wasn’t there, kid buried his father and I _disappeared_ —” She snorts, her shoulders shaking because of a sudden laughing – or sobbing, he isn’t really sure – fit. “I was hurting him, and I just— I told myself it was fine, you know? All fine, it’s not like he was crying all day or anything, he was good. But it’s not like _I_ was crying all day, and I wasn’t _fine_ , so—”

“Emma—” he chokes out, scooting closer as his eyes start burning like hell, and he’d give _anything_ to be able to touch her right now. He tries, reaching over to her cheeks to try and wipe away her tears.

She shivers, but that might as well have been the cold.

“I fucked up so bad.” Her voice is thin and quivering around the edges. “I just didn’t want to think about it— hurts too much— running’s easier, you know?”

“Yeah, I know,” he says, softly, moving to her side so that he can wrap his arms around her, because even if she won’t feel it, it will at least make him feel like he’s doing _something_. “It’s gonna be okay. Henry will forgive you.”

She sucks in a breath, and he can feel her shaking as she chokes out: “I want it to _stop_.” She breaks into a sob, the first of many, curling on herself and burying her face between her legs.

He tries to hold on tighter, but he _knows_ that he isn’t actually doing anything to help her, and it makes him want to scream or cry or possibly both.

“I’m so sorry,” he can only say, because at the end of the day he will never be able to apologize enough to her, as he bends over to lay a kiss on her head. When he does, he feels a tingle against his lips, spreading all over his body and then exploding in the air in a literal rainbow that he watches disappear with huge eyes and his mouth half open, still bent over Emma.

Emma, on the other hand, does anything _but_ staying still: she lets out a scream, so loud and sudden that it startles him into almost falling over, and she starts scrambling away from him, looking like she’s just seen a ghost.

“I’m not that drunk,” she declares, firmly, turning so that she’s facing the ground instead of him, although her eyes keep darting in his direction. “I’m _not_ that drunk!”

It takes a few moments for Neal to register what she’s saying. “You—you can see me?” he asks, an hopeful smile twisting his lips as she keeps _staring_ and clearly _seeing_ him.

“I’m making you up,” she says, pointedly, more aimed at herself than him, probably.

He laughs, which probably makes him look insane, but she can _see_ him—

Before he can find the words to try and convince her that he’s not a figment of her imagination, her phone starts ringing, and she clumsily gets it out, still glancing at him every two seconds.

“Yeah?” she lets out, absently. She’s staring at him with huge eyes, and he just keeps grinning and grinning like a madman, because what the hell, she can _see_ him—

“Regina, Regina—” Emma suddenly says, hesitantly dragging herself in his direction, trying to help herself with the hand that isn’t holding the phone. “It’s important, okay? I’m gonna put you on speaker, and—and you tell me what you hear.”

Now that she’s closer, Neal can sort of make out Regina’s voice as Emma tries to get to the right button as quickly as possible, although he can’t understand what she’s saying until she’s on speaker.

“— _seriously, whatever it is needs to wait_ —”

“Tell her something,” Emma says, firmly, holding out the phone for him.

He hesitates. “Uh, hi, Regina,” is the best that he can come up with on the spot. There’s sudden silence on the other end of the line. “It’s nice to be back from the dead, I suppose.”

“ _You’ve gotta be kidding me_ ,” Regina finally lets out.

Emma sucks in a breath. “You—you heard him?”

“ _Of course I did, where the hell are you two?”_

“By my grave,” he supplies, which is a very weird thing to say out loud. Next thing he knows, Regina has appeared beside them, and she’s looking at him with reasonable bewilderment, since people in general don’t randomly resurrect in the middle of the night.

He opens his mouth to attempt some form of greeting, but he gets distracted by Emma.

“You’re real,” she chuckles, disbelievingly. She moves a little closer, giving him a weak shove, which proves to both of them that he’s very much solid. “You’re _real_.” She launches herself at him, and he promptly wraps his arms around her, drawing a breath of relief when she sinks even more into him, responding to the touch. It doesn’t last long, though, because she starts struggling, shaken by sobs as she lays uncoordinated punches and shoves on his chest but clasps his shirt to pull him closer a second later.

He tries to calm her down, but she doesn’t listen, muttering something that he thinks are a string of insults all tangled around each other, until she eventually stops on her own, dropping her forehead against his shoulder and choking out: “I _missed_ you.”

“You too,” he says, quietly, taking a deep breath as he steadies his hold on her.

His eyes move to Regina, who crosses her arms as soon as she notices that she has his attention. “What exactly happened?”

“I’m not sure,” he admits. “I thought I was dead— I’ve been stuck here for weeks, but nobody could see or hear me, and then I kissed her and—” He trials off, making a vague gesture with his hand.

Regina purses her lips. “True Love’s Kiss,” she states, and his stomach takes a leap. “It woke me up.” It’s funny that there’s a note of reprimand there, he didn’t even do it on _purpose_. “But True Love’s Kiss doesn’t revive _dead_ people.”

“So I wasn’t dead?” he frowns.

She shrugs. “Apparently not.” He doesn’t think that he imagined the slight smile on her face. There’s a pause, then she gets out her phone. “I’m calling Rumple,” she informs him. “He probably felt the magic too anyway.”

Neal swallows, nodding even if she doesn’t wait for his permission, his stomach twisting in anticipation. He kinda— he really wants to see him. Or better, he wants to _be_ seen.

“Hey, Emma,” he calls, quietly. “Shouldn’t we get up?”

“Nope,” is her only answer, as she grips him tighter.

Okay, then.

“No, don’t worry, I know what it was,” Regina is saying, when he turns his attention back to her. “It was True Love’s Kiss— I’m _telling_ you who it was, just let me _speak_ —” She pauses for a moment. “Although you might want to sit down.”

Neal snorts.

“Okay, fine— it was Emma. With Neal. As in your dead son, he’s right here in front of me and he’s— very much alive, I’d say.”

There’s an unnaturally long pause that follows, and that Regina uses to comment ‘I did tell you to sit’, then she supplies their location. It only takes a few more moments for his father to appear a few feet away from them. He stands still, gaping at him like a fish, and Neal feels a laugh rasp in the back of his throat.

“I’d get up but—” he says, gesturing vaguely. It turns out that his dad doesn’t really care either way, because a moment later he has joined them, diving straight to the ground and hugging him so tight that he might just kill him again. Or maybe that’s just Neal being too overwhelmed to breathe right.

(Possibly a little bit of both.)

Rumple doesn’t say anything, but Neal can hear him drawing raspy breaths as he clasps his fingers tightly around his clothes. Emma has calmed down, at least.

They spend an eternity in silence before his father seems to be able to pull himself back together just enough to pull away, and they elect to finally get up. Emma needs a little help getting stable on her feet, but they manage, and it’s only when he lets go of her that Neal notices that both Regina and Rumple are wearing pyjamas, the latter’s being now half-covered in dirt after kneeling on the ground.

They look a little bit ridiculous, and he has to suppress a very inappropriate grin.

“So— what now?” Regina asks, pressing her lips together.

If she’s referring to figuring out how exactly he’s standing there right now, Neal doesn’t have a clue. What he _does_ know is that he wants to see Henry, and he’s about to ask about him, but he gets distracted by his father.

Rumple is looking at him thoughtfully, and Neal is pretty sure that he can see a bit of an internal struggle on his face. He eventually gives in, who knows to what, and he says: “A moment.”

With only that as a warning, he disappears.

“Oh, yes, obviously,” Regina mutters, throwing her hands up. “I _love_ it when he does that.”

“Uh, hey, Regina,” Neal calls, deciding that his father will probably be back on his own and that he can afford to put a pin on it. “I know it’s late, but— where’s Henry? Can I see him?”

Her annoyed expression quickly softens, but his visual of her gets soon covered by his father appearing in front of him, right next to Killian, who sways dangerously on his feet before finally straightening his back.

“What the hell do you want?!” he immediately protests, glaring at Rumple. “It’s the middle of the— bloody hell.”

Neal has to say, he is kinda enjoying everyone gaping at him. It’s a nice change from shouting in the void.

“Alright,” Killian says, slowly, his eyes still fixated on Neal. “I’ll have you know that I’m completely wasted—”

“Big surprise,” Neal snorts.

“—and I’m seeing dead people. Are there dead people here?”

Rumple rolls his eyes. “Can you think of literally _any_ other reason why I’d willingly seek you out?”

Killian quirks his eyebrow, crossing his arms. “For one, I’m a joy to be around,” he declares, confidently, which earns him an even more theatrical eye-roll. He then turns back to Neal, taking a step forward as he frowns and reaches over to give him a small shove. And then another, and another, just to be safe.

“Yup, I’m solid.”

That does it, and next thing Neal knows he’s being pulled into a clumsy hug by a very drunk pirate. He awkwardly raises his arms to embrace him back, because it’s too enthusiastic to do otherwise, and he ends up giving him a couple of friendly pats on the back, wondering if there’s a big ‘help me’ sign flashing on his forehead right now.

Maybe there is, because when he meets Regina’s eyes her lips twist into a grin, and she says: “So, about Henry—”

“Yeah?” Neal prompts, his stomach jumping in his throat. Killian doesn’t seem to have any intention of being nudged into letting go, and Neal’s shoulders begin to relax a little, because what the hell, this is weird but if one doesn’t do this kind of stuff when coming back from the dead _when_ is it allowed, exactly?

(It’s nice. Sort of.)

“We can go see him, I suppose,” she shrugs. “Well, if Captain Emotional is done here—”

“Nope,” Killian declares, shameless. “Not at all.”

Neal snorts. “I think it was rhetorical, man.”

Regina rolls her eyes, and with a sharp movement of her wrist the world twists and turns around Neal, his stomach jumping up to his throat with a double pike as everything gets purple for a moment. A blink of an eye, and they are all standing in Regina’s living room.

Killian clumsily pulls away from him, but he still grips onto his arm for balance as he turns to the side to throw up.

“Shit,” Neal mutters, barely resisting the urge to push him as far as away as he can manage.

Regina grimaces, quickly cleaning the floor up with magic, and Neal resolves to half-carry Killian to the couch, hoping that he won’t throw up directly on _him_ this time.

Emma is looking a little green too, and Rumple helps her to the couch without Neal even needing to ask, thankfully.

“I’m going to wake Henry,” Regina announces. Neal’s first instinct is protesting that _he_ wants to do it, because the sooner he gets to hold Henry the better, and it must show on his face, because she adds: “We don’t want to give him a stroke by having his dead father wake him up in the middle of the night, do we?”

Neal concedes the point with a brief gesture, barely swallowing his impatience.

Regina seems satisfied. “Try not to make a mess of my house,” she adds, turning to the couch.

Emma merely glares at her, keeping her mouth firmly shut the way she did those rare times that she got carsick, whereas Killian doesn’t even turn in her direction.

“Maybe next time don’t teleport drunk people,” Neal feels compelled to point out – speak up for those who can’t do it for themselves and all that crap.

Regina gives him an unimpressed look and heads to the stairs, which is when Neal notices that Rumple has been insistently staring at him the whole time. Which is unsurprising, it’s just too much to pay attention to at once.

Neal musters up a smile. “I take it I’ve been missed?” he blurts out, hoping to get some kind of smile out of him, because he looks dangerously close to crying, and a crying father is always an unsettling sight.

It doesn’t quite work: Rumple nods briefly, his lips twisting slightly upward and his eyes still visibly glassy.

Thankfully, he isn’t the only person in the room.

“We went crazy!” Killian intervenes, evidently feeling a little better, gesturing broadly between him and Rumple. “We are friends now! _Friends_!”

“That’s an exaggeration,” Rumple immediately clarifies, his expression turning to one of mild disgust.

“Nah, I saw the two of you,” Neal intervenes, gladly following Killian’s lead and grinning a little, because that is still amusing as hell. “Definitely friends.”

Rumple frowns. “What do you mean you _saw_ us?”

Neal shrugs. “All this time I was stuck by my grave, I could see and hear everything but no one saw or heard me. I, uh, came back when I kissed Emma.”

Rumple blinks at him, taking it in, but before he can react they hear quick footsteps down the stairs, followed by Henry making his appearance with an insanely loud: “Dad!”

Neal feels laughter building up in his chest, resulting in the dumbest grin in the history of all grins getting plastered on his face, at the same time as a veil of tears makes it hard to see. That doesn’t stop him: he leaps forward to meet Henry half-way as he runs towards him, and soon enough he’s gathering him in his arms. It’s unclear who’s trying to strangle whom there: Neal just wants to keep pulling him closer and closer until he can’t feel him shaking anymore, and Henry seems to be attempting to sink into his chest, digging his nails into his back.

“I’m sorry,” Neal immediately blurts out, feeling a wave of relief after finally being able to let him hear that apology that he’s been whispering to the wind since this whole thing started. “I’m so sorry.”

Henry nods once, maybe not even understanding what he’s referring to. “I missed you,” he sniffs, his voice coming out muffled given that his cheek is pressed tightly against Neal’s chest.

“I missed you too, buddy,” Neal chokes out, swallowing back a wave of tears and drawing an itching breath. “So much.”

(Whatever happens, he is going to make the most out of this second chance.)

**Author's Note:**

> This story is part of the [LLF Comment Project](https://longlivefeedback.tumblr.com/llfcommentproject), which was created to improve communication between readers and authors. This author invites and appreciates feedback, including: 
> 
>   * Short comments
>   * Long comments
>   * Questions
>   * “<3” as extra kudos
>   * Reader-reader interaction
> 

> 
> If you don’t want a reply, for any reason, feel free to sign your comment with “whisper” and I will appreciate it but not respond!


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